Motorcycle license and IDP for Bali rentals

Indonesian traffic law expects riders to hold a valid motorcycle license. For visitors that usually means an International Driving Permit (IDP) together with a motorcycle license from home.

That sentence is short and all the trouble is in the detail: no IDP at all, a permit bought from a website that issues nothing, a car licence that says nothing about motorcycles, or a permit that expired somewhere between booking and arrival. Each of those is a guest standing at our counter in Canggu with a booked bike they cannot take.

Treasure Bike Rental is a motorcycle shop in Tibubeneng, Canggu. We do not give legal advice and we do not replace the police. This page is what we check at pickup and what we have watched go wrong, in line with the rental terms.

What we expect at pickup

Bring the documents you will ride with. For most visitors that is:

• a motorcycle license issued in your home country
• an IDP that matches that license
• the passport you used for the booking

A car-only license is not a motorcycle license. If you are unsure whether your permit covers motorcycles, check before you travel — we cannot invent a substitute on the day.

Bring originals. A photo on your phone is not a document, and a checkpoint is not the place to find that out. Carry the licence and the IDP on you; the papers that belong to the motorcycle stay with the motorcycle.

The IDP, in the detail that matters

An IDP is a translation of your home licence, not a licence by itself. It has no standing alone, which is why traffic checks want to see both. Lose the home licence and the IDP stops meaning anything.

Get it before you fly

An IDP is issued against a licence by the body the issuing country designates — in most countries the national automobile association. It is usually a same-day errand and costs roughly one rental day.

No office in Bali issues an IDP against a Norwegian or a Canadian licence, and no rental shop can wave one into existence. Some authorities will deal with you once you have already left — the AAA takes online applications from US licence holders overseas and posts the permit out, and the postal route runs to weeks — but that is a rescue, not a plan. If the permit is not in your bag when you land, the answer for the first part of that trip is a driver.

Which permit to ask for

This is the part almost nobody checks, and the honest answer is not the one most rental blogs give.

Two IDP formats are in circulation, one under the 1949 Geneva Convention and one under the 1968 Vienna Convention — and Indonesia is a contracting party to neither. It does not appear among the parties to the 1949 convention at all, and it signed the 1968 convention in November 1968 without ever ratifying it. Anyone who tells you Indonesia "recognises" one specific booklet is reading a treaty that Indonesia never joined.

What that means in practice is the opposite of a rule to memorise. There is no convention for your permit to match, so do not go hunting for a particular version: tell your own issuing authority that you are riding in Indonesia and take whichever permit they issue for it. The UK government, for example, lists Indonesia under the 1968 permit. Your country may list the other one. Both travel with the home licence, and that pairing is what a traffic check actually looks at.

Permits sold on the internet are not permits

Search results are full of sites selling an "international driving licence" as a PDF, a plastic card, or a lifetime membership. They are not issuing authorities. Holograms, layout and a confident checkout page do not change that.

The test is who issues it, not whether the form was online. A genuine IDP comes from the body designated by the country that issued your licence, and it refers back to that licence by number. Several of those bodies now take applications through their own website and post the booklet out, which is legitimate. A company that has never seen your national licence is selling a souvenir, however slick the checkout.

Check the expiry against your return date

Most permits run one year from issue. One also lapses with the licence behind it — if the home licence expires mid-trip, the IDP goes with it.

Long-stay riders get caught by this most often: the permit was valid on the flight out and ran out somewhere around week six. Check the dates against the day you fly home, not the day you arrive.

Long stays: KITAS and SIM C

If you are in Indonesia long enough to hold a KITAS, the tidy answer is an Indonesian licence — a SIM C — rather than renewing IDPs from abroad. It is the local document, it does not expire on a tourist timetable, and it removes the convention question completely.

The Indonesian classification goes by engine size, in three steps: SIM C up to and including 250cc, SIM CI above 250 up to 500cc, SIM CII above 500cc.

That line runs straight through what we can put you on. The everyday bikes are inside SIM C — a Yamaha XSR155 at 155cc and a Honda CBR250RR at 249cc are the same paperwork question, both SIM C. The larger machines in the adventure and cruiser hubs, and some partner units, are 350cc and up, which is SIM CI or SIM CII. Riding one of those on a SIM C is riding on the wrong class.

The other cap is the one on your own licence, and on your policy. Plenty of home categories are limited by engine size, and riders forget what theirs allows after fifteen years of driving cars. Read your licence before booking a 250 rather than a 155 — which motorcycle to rent in Canggu covers the riding side of the same decision.

If you already hold a SIM C, say so when you book. Pickup is simply faster.

What happens when the paperwork is wrong

Two consequences, and the second is the expensive one.

At a checkpoint. Razia stops around Canggu check the obvious: helmet, licence, IDP for visitors, and the papers of the bike. Fines and legal outcomes are yours. We can confirm shop-side facts — which bike, which booking — but we do not negotiate tickets.

With your cover. Riding without the licence class a policy requires is the standard exclusion. A travel policy that looked like it covered a motorcycle will decline a claim from a rider who was not licensed for that motorcycle, and that is the one bill a deposit does not cap.

We will refuse a rental when the documents are not there. That conversation is uncomfortable for ten seconds and much cheaper than the alternative. Rider requirements are in the terms.

We are not an immigration or police office, and rules can be applied differently at a checkpoint. The practical step is to carry what the law already asks for.

Deposit and passport

A deposit is required. The amount is on each bike page. You can leave it as cash or transfer, or leave your passport as collateral. Either way it is returned when the bike comes back in good condition. We do not keep your passport after the rental.

Full deposit, cancellation and rider rules are in the terms.

Pickup in Canggu

The shop is in Tibubeneng. Villa drop-off in the Canggu zone (Berawa, Pererenan, Tibubeneng) is free. Other Bali zones are priced at checkout.

Handover includes the same document check whether you collect the bike on Padonan or we bring it to the villa. Having the originals ready is the difference between a five-minute handover and a phone call to a villa safe.

If you have a document question before you book, write on WhatsApp rather than guessing at the counter. A permit problem found a week before the flight is solvable; found at handover it is not.

WhatsApp

Before you book

1. Motorcycle category on the home licence — not car-only.
2. IDP from your own issuing authority, whichever version they issue for Indonesia.
3. Both originals in your bag, not photos on a phone.
4. Expiry dates checked against the return flight.
5. Engine size you are booking matched against what your licence allows.
6. Cover arranged if you want it, with the licence clause read — we do not sell it.

Get those six right and the paperwork side of renting in Bali is a non-event. The rest of the rental — deposit, delivery, choosing the bike — is on how to rent a motorcycle in Canggu, and the first-hour riding side is on first ride in Bali traffic.

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